Mona Kamal’s new body of work investigates themes of deconstruction and rebirth. She utilizes objects from nature, her personal surrounding and artifacts that she has collected over time to reference her childhood memories as well as familial stories. In an installation that evokes the quilt-like structure of memory-making, Kamal juxtaposes materials gathered in India, such as red sand and textiles, to address ideas echoed in the cycle of life. Kamal employs objects as a bridge between India and Canada and focuses on the empty memories, and the processes, by which people create their stories.
Essay
On Mona Kamal's Journeys
[...]Mona Kamal's Journeys is an exhibition of collection and reassembly an articulation of years of experiences and travels that have been shipped, shifted and recombined. Kamal has conserved physical and conceptual mementos from her trips to India and Pakistan and reconstituted them alongside material reflections of her past in Canada as well as her current life in New York City. She recontextualizes her journeys and experiences, translating them into publicly and personally legible forms.[...]
Artist Bio
Mona Kamal
Mona Kamal is a visual artist who creates installations that explore her ancestry within her contemporary environment. She creates fictitious exotic spaces that spark a feeling of nostalgia for a lost culture. Kamal has exhibited throughout Canada, in New York and India. She has received several grants for the creation of her artworks through the Ontario and the Toronto Arts Councils, as well as several arts education and community arts grants through the Ontario Arts Council. She recently attended a residency at the Sanskriti Foundation in New Delhi and has a group exhibition upcoming at Rush Arts Gallery in 2009. Mona is currently living in New York City persuing her MFA at the Parsons School for Art, Media and Technology.